Where it stops nobody knows: the NBA's coaching carousel is spinning faster and faster. That means coaches must be adept at stepping on the ride at midseason and getting their teams to the playoffs

Sean Deveney

For years, Mike Fratello said he did not want to come back to coaching in the middle of a season. There was little incentive to do so. Fratello had a good gig as a broadcaster and an established reputation as a coach, having won 572 regular-season games in 13 seasons. A coach who takes over during a season faces an unusual challenge: He must adjust his style, finding a happy medium between what the players have been taught and what he wants. And he does not have the benefit of training camp to drive home the changes. That was not an enticing mix for Fratello.

Says Bulls coach Scott Skiles, who took over the Suns during the 1999-2000 season and did the same with the Bulls last season, "It depends on the philosophy of the guy who coached before you. If your philosophy is a lot different, that makes it tougher; you have to change everything. But if it is similar, that makes the transition easier."

There is little surprise Fratello made an exception when the Grizzlies called last Thanksgiving after Hubie Brown retired--Fratello's philosophy had been shaped by Brown for decades. Fratello was an assistant to Brown in Atlanta and again in New York. When he took over the Grizzlies, Fratello knew he would not need to revamp the playbook or reprogram the players.

Still, the Grizzlies have been a challenge. They were 5-11 when Fratello was hired on December 2. On the day he was introduced as the team's new coach, Fratello said he got some good advice about how to handle the transition: "I was told to lock my door for 30 days and never come out. So, for anyone who calls me, sorry if I don't get back to you." Basically, that is what Fratello did. The Grizzlies had 15 games in his first 27 days on the job, leaving time for just three practices.

Whatever Fratello did behind that locked door worked. He started by making obvious changes: tightening the team's defense, which had been focused on forcing turnovers with ball pressure, and scaling back the reliance on Brown's 10-man rotation. Instead, Fratello has emphasized toughness in the paint and has used more traditional rotations.

But Fratello still uses Brown's play calls, and he uses every player--partially because the Grizzlies have endured so many injuries. Memphis has used 19 starting lineups, none for more than 11 games, and the preferred starting five of Jason Williams, Mike Miller, Shane Battier, Pau Gasol and Lorenzen Wright has made just six starts. When Gasol was out for 23 games with a foot injury, Fratello went to unorthodox sources for post scoring--guard Bonzi Wells and small forward Battier. Now that Gasol has returned, the Grizzlies slowly are going back to him.

"There is a lot we have had to change as we go," Fratello says. "But I am hoping the players are more comfortable with what we want now."

The Grizzlies are 35-20 under Fratello and have vaulted back into the Western Conference's tough playoff picture. His defensive changes have driven the turnaround--the Grizzlies have allowed just 89.2 points per game after allowing 95.4 per game under brown. Thus, Fratello has done the one thing he did not think he'd ever do again, one of the toughest things to do in the NBA--take over a team midseason and still be successful.

Fratello is not alone, though. He is one of nine coaches who have taken over teams this season, and as we wind down to the playoffs, the performances of those coaches stand out as some of the most fascinating stories of the season. In fact, four to six of the new coaches figure to be guiding teams into the postseason--meaning at least a quarter of all playoff teams will be headed by a coach who has been on the job less than six months.

Historically, it has been a rare feat for coaches to take over teams during a season and still reach the playoffs. In the 1990s, it happened 14 times; in the '80s, eight times; in the '70s, five times; and in the '60s, three times. But the league has changed, and coaching jobs have gotten tougher to hold down. Last year, three teams--Boston, New York and New Jersey--reached the playoffs after in-season coaching changes.

This adds another degree of difficulty to a profession that has become increasingly pressure-packed. Four coaches (Hubie Brown, the Lakers' Rudy Tomjanovich, the Knicks' Lenny Wilkens and the Mavericks' Don Nelson) have resigned this season because of health or stress-related problems, and another, Pistons coach Larry Brown, considered the possibility of missing the rest of the season because of complications from hip surgery before returning last week. It should be mentioned that those coaches have an average age of nearly 63, an indication that the pressures of NBA coaching have made the job better suited to younger men.

"A lot of the fault lies with us, as teams," says one Western Conference general manager. "We're expecting coaches to take guys who are 18, 19 years old and teach them the fundamentals and make them better players. We expect them to be perfect with X's and O's. We expect them to find the right role for everyone. And we expect them to know all the other teams and what they do during games--and to win 50 games and go to the playoffs. Maybe that is too much."

After the Magic fired Johnny Davis on March 17, Heat coach Stan Van Gundy said, "At this late date, I'm just very, very surprised. A team right there in the playoff hunt, tied for the eighth spot ... I don't know what to say about it. Not much in the NBA surprises me, but this does."

What Van Gundy did not know then was that two more coaching changes involving playoff teams were coming. Only one team, Portland, has made a coaching change while hopelessly out of the playoff picture. Four other teams--the Nuggets, Timberwolves, Cavaliers and Magic--have made their coaching changes with the intent of motivating players. And one team, the Mavericks, nudged Nelson aside because players were responding better to coach in waiting Avery Johnson. The results have been mixed:

* Denver has had tremendous success under new coach George Karl, with a 24-6 record since he took over January 27. The team, which had lost respect for lame-duck coach Jeff Bzdelik, has responded to Karl's pedigree, which includes 16 years of experience and a visit to The Finals. The Nuggets are defending better and playing a faster pace.

* A soft schedule, months spent learning from Nelson and the performance of two bench players--Keith Van Horn and Jerry Stackhouse--have made Johnson's transition smooth in Dallas, where the Mavs started with seven wins in eight games. Johnson has implemented more consistent rotations and is getting more out of talented youngsters Marquis Daniels and Josh Howard.

* Former Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders is regarded as one of the league's best, and Minnesota could regret letting him leave. But the team was weighed down by heavy expectations and bad attitudes. To get its attention, team vice president Kevin McHale fired Saunders and made himself the coach. McHale simplified Saunders' playbook, altered the starting lineup and started bringing point guard Sam Cassell off the bench, igniting a five-game win streak. Minnesota (13-8 since firing Saunders) still is struggling to move into the eighth playoff spot in the West.

* The Cavaliers, disappointed with a stretch in which the team went 3-9, fired veteran coach Paul Silas despite a 34-30 overall record and a place in the playoffs that was all but assured. New coach Brendan Malone has gotten better defensive effort from the Cavs, who are 3-4 since the change. The team had been worried about a lack of depth and the heavy burden Silas was putting on star LeBron James. Those problems have not changed under Malone, who used James in all 53 minutes of an overtime loss last week.

* The Magic was a respectable 31-33 under Davis even though he was in the final year of his contract and failed to get solid control of his team. Orlando fired Davis after a six-game losing streak and replaced him with 35-year-old neophyte Chris Jent. The same problems that plagued Davis--little control over his players and no defense--have weighed down Jent, and the Magic is battling to stay in the playoff picture.

Karl and Fratello have been the most obviously effective, showing that hiring an established veteran usually helps make a midseason change go more smoothly. Many have marveled at Karl's ability to turn around teams quickly, and the key may be his innovative use of practice drills. When Karl noticed the Nuggets were not exploiting their uptempo abilities, he instituted a scrimmage drill in which one team has a full 24 seconds to score but the opposing team is given a short clock of seven or eight seconds--it must advance the ball and figure out how to get baskets quickly.

"He started running that drill, and not long after, we got to be a very good fast-break team," says Nuggets analyst and former coach Bill Hanzlik. "You see our guys now; they are so much more comfortable playing fast, and they put a lot of pressure on the defense that way. I don't think any coach is better at using drills to set up what he wants to do in a game than George."

With the playoffs approaching, Karl's Nuggets should be a lower-seeded team no one wants to play. With Tim Duncan's ankle injury putting the Spurs' title hopes in jeopardy, Johnson's Mavericks could be a surprise Finals team. Fratello's Grizzlies have fought off injuries and should be a tough playoff matchup--unless McHale's Timberwolves sneak up and knock the Grizzlies out of the postseason. Malone will be guiding James, the league's best young player, into his first postseason, and Jent is keeping Orlando within striking distance of the East's eighth seed.

Combined, those six have been on the job for about nine months.

"(Coaches) are taking over a lot later than I ever did," Skiles says. "You just don't have any time to change things. That has to be hard."

Running the numbers on this season's coaching changes

Team             Old coach           Record (Pct.)    New coach

Nuggets          Jeff Bzdelik *      17-25 (.405)     George Karl
Grizzlies        Hubie Brown **       5-11 (.313)     Mike Fratello
Mavericks        Don Nelson ***      42-22 (.656)     Avery Johnson
Timberwolves     Flip Saunders       25-27 (.481)     Kevin McHale
Magic            Johnny Davis        31-33 (.484)     Chris Jent
Knicks           Lenny Wilkens       17-22 (.436)     Herb Williams
Cavaliers        Paul Silas          34-30 (.531)     Brendan Malone
Lakers           Rudy Tomjanovich    22-19 (.537)     Frank Hamblen
Trail Blazers    Maurice Cheeks      22-33 (.400)     Kevin Pritchard

Team             Record (Pct.)    Pct. Difference

Nuggets            24-6 (.800)    +.395
Grizzlies         35-20 (.636)    +.323
Mavericks           7-1 (.875)    +.219
Timberwolves       13-8 (.619)    +.138
Magic               4-5 (.444)    -.040
Knicks            12-20 (.375)    -.061
Cavaliers           3-4 (.429)    -.102
Lakers            11-20 (.355)    -.182
Trail Blazers      2-15 (.118)    -.282

* Includes 14 games under interim coach Michael Cooper

** Includes four games under interim coach Lionel Hollins

*** Includes 13 games coached by Johnson as a fill-in for Nelson

COPYRIGHT 2005 Sporting News Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning